Charity performances for Festen revival

FESTEN is an acclaimed Scandinavian drama about a family reunion full of dark secrets waiting to come to the surface.It comes to Liverpool next week in a new production directed by city actor Scot Williams.The stage adaptation, by David Eldridge, came after Tomas Vinterberg’s Danish film of the same name; the first of the minimalist, naturalistic Dogme 95 movement he began with Lars von Trier.It was a 2004 West End production – with a young Tom Hardy among the cast - that first caught Scot's imagination. “It was just phenomenal,” he recalls, “I remember at the time one reviewer said it was the most powerful piece of theatre he’d ever seen.” (Indeed, Guardian critic Michael Billington named it the best play that year.)Now, his own production of Festen is about to take to the stage. In recent years, London-based Scot has been splitting his time between here and the Capital to teach at Liverpool Media Academy (LMA) on Hope Street and spend more time with family living locally.  Working with final year acting graduates, he saw the benefit in arranging public performances of their end-of-year assessment piece, not only as a chance to give students their first taste of  professional work, but with all proceeds going to a local charity relating to the theme of the play.With 13 students and 13 parts in Festen, things fell into place, and the upcoming performances at Hope Street Theatre (from May 23 to 25) – approved by David Eldridge himself - will be in aid of NAPAC, the National Association for People Abused in Childhood.NAPAC is a small, independent charity based in Stockport, that is currently struggling to deal with the sheer number of enquiries it receives - 85,000 last year alone. Anyone suffering the aftermath of child abuse of any kind, whether recent or historic, is welcome to access their services. It will receive 100% of the profits from the production.Scot's career has been mainly in front of the camera since his break starring as original Beatles drummer Pete Best in Backbeat in 1994 at the age of 20. A precociously talented playwright even before then, he came up through the Everyman Youth Theatre."I only direct plays with a subject matter close to my heart, and I think the best plays are the ones that are still on your mind days later,” says Scot, who has supported people close to him through childhood abuse. Festen’s troubling subject matter and jet black comedy certainly stands to fit the bill, taking place over one night as a family birthday turns out to be far from a happy occasion; the guest of honour turning out to be anything but. “It sounds very depressing but it’s not, and it will be something everyone in the audience can relate to. The play is about exposing toxic people.”The play stays true to the ethos of the original film, the first of the Dogme 95 movement, which aimed to reject special effects, technical gimmickry and overproduction in its storytelling, and give actors the freedom to interpret their roles. Its simplicity spoke to Scot.“This is my style of acting and directing,” he says. Before working with LMA, Scot's last work in Liverpool was his own play Hope, staged at the Royal Court in 2013; an ethereal thriller that saw him star alongside Samantha and Mark Womack. "I want the audience to feel they are voyeurs, like they shouldn’t really be there and are just peeping in.”Aside from teaching, Scot has been working on adapting Hope into a novel, and will start shooting a new film alongside Tim Robbins in the near future.Tickets for Festen are £10, available now from Ticketquarter.